Harry Potter and Sirius Unfortunately Absent
by Violet CLM
Summary: PreHBP. When Luna Lovegood's house is burned down by Death Eaters, she decides to move to Privet Drive.
1. The Mad Beginning

Harry Potter and Sirius Unfortunately Absent

CHAPTER ONE

THE MAD BEGINNING

It was a Wednesday morning, and Harry Potter was awakened by the sounds of his half-family bustling noisily around the house. He groaned and pulled the bedcovers over his ears, but the sound continued in a suddenly-muffled style. He could hear the enormous bulk of his cousin Dudley as he plodded past the door, the floorboards creaking ominously beneath his every step. Harry's owl, Hedwig, made a quiet nose of owlish disapproval, and Harry agreed. The clock on the bedside table, which Harry had paid for by surreptitiously converting some of his many galleons into muggle money, said the time was only 7:15 AM. What business did the Dursleys have to be awake and so noisy at this hour?

A further surprise came when Harry's Uncle Vernon began a thunderous pounding on the closed bedroom door. The Dursleys' latest policy for dealing with Harry's presence was to ignore him completely; they left out food for him at mealtimes, presumably fearing the wrath of Alastor Moody or some other intimidating figure in Harry's life, but they never initiated conversation nor acknowledged that the food was meant for him. The only relative Harry had conversed with in weeks was Dudley, who responded angrily to taunts, forgetting his parent-assigned task of paying no attention to his skinnier cousin.

"Boy!" bellowed Uncle Vernon, abandoning the knocking for a more verbal approach to get Harry's attention. "Boy, get up!"

"Whadyerdoenawaeg?" mumbled Harry indistinctly from beneath the covers.

"New neighbor, boy! Everyone on the street's turnin' out to give'em a good greeting. UP!"

The covers slid slowly off of Harry as he sat up with aroused interest. "You want to show me to the new neighbors?" The Dursleys had always kept him as secret as possible, and damned his reputation with tales of criminal misbehavior every time he accidentally met anyone friendly or sympathetic. The only person besides the Dursleys themselves Harry had been allowed contact with was old Ms. Figg, who as Harry had learned in the summer before his fifth year at Hogwarts, was a squib planted by Dumbledore to ensure his safety. With all of this, Harry's existence being advertised - even proved - to new people was something of a novelty.

Uncle Vernon finally abandoned the hallway and wrenched Harry's door open, striding into the bedroom and standing over Harry's seated form. "Don't think we like you or anything because of this, boy," he said, words just loud enough to be audible. "Petunia let it slip that there was another boy here besides Dudley when she met Mr. Lowett or whatever yesterday, and it'll look strange to not have you there. Just keep your mouth shut and everything'll go fine. Get it?"

"Let slip," said Harry moodily, getting up from the bed and rooting around for his clothes. "Look strange, mouth shut. Got it."

"Good," said Uncle Vernon, and made to exit the room. Harry's voice stopped him with one final question. "How many of them are there?"

"Two," said Uncle Vernon, as if any number less than three was an abomination. "Just two, a man and his daughter. About your age… don't you go getting any funny ideas, though, boy."

"Of course not," said Harry, and pulled on an old pair of lucky shoes Dudley had abandoned after they had failed to get him a passing grade on a history exam.

A few minutes later, the Dursleys walked out their front door, Harry following a minimum distance of three meters behind. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia were wearing their Sunday Bests, and Vernon had apparently polished his mustache for the occasion. Dudley was dressed in his Smeltings school uniform and cap, twirling his long stick around, eyes darting around for someone to hit with it. Harry, having no special clothes besides his black Hogwarts robes and the dress robes he had bought for the Yule Ball in his fourth year, neither of which would have been at all appropriate for Privet Drive, was plainly dressed in an old green t-shirt and faded jeans.

The crowd of people at Number 9 Privet Drive suggested that it was there the new neighbors had moved into, displacing Mr. and Ms. Charleston, and it was indeed to that address that the Dursleys made their stately way. Harry's eyes passed over the familiar faces of the Evanses and Polkisses and other people he had seen on countless occasions either through his window or while loitering in the streets, and searched for the newcomers.

The father was easy enough to find - Harry had only to look for where the older neighbors were _not_. A wide circle of space seemed to exist around the man, as if the various inhabitants of Privet Drive had no real wish to converse with him, even if they had come on this day to welcome him and his daughter to the community. He was tall and plump, with short yellowish hair and glasses, and he wore a plaid sweater and bright orange jeans. Harry's eyebrows went up - he had not seen such poorly matching clothes since Arnold and the other wizards at the Quidditch World Cup attempting to dress as muggles did. For a moment Harry wondered if this man could be a wizard as well, but then dismissed that thought as unlikely, sure that no such unusual person could ever want to move to a place like Privet Drive.

All thoughts of dismissal, however, flew from Harry's head as he noticed the man's daughter among the crowd. He stood still, staring in disbelief. The scraggly blonde hair, puzzled expression, and unusual dressing style were unmistakable. As he stared, the girl noticed him and smiled, walking up to him past the disagreeable Dursleys.

"Hello, Harry Potter," said the girl, twirling a lock of hair around her somewhat long finger. "How are you?"

"Luna?" asked Harry, blinking to see if she would go away when he closed his eyes. "Luna _Lovegood_?"

She nodded. "Yes, that is my name. Actually, some people like to call me _Loony_ Lovegood instead, but I don't think you do. How are you?"

Realizing that she would probably keep asking until he answered the question, Harry shrugged. "I'm fine, I guess. But what are you doing here?"

"We just moved in," said Luna, gesturing vaguely behind her at Number 9 Privet Drive. "Dad decided we should move somewhere, and Arabella had said this house was empty, so it seemed quite nice."

Arabella was the first name of Ms. Figg, who kept a large number of cats and a larger number of cat scrapbooks. "You know her?"

"Oh, yes," said Luna, now gazing off at a tree somewhere behind Harry's left shoulder. "She and Dad have known each other for years. She offered to give us her house as a tent for the Quidditch World Cup, but tent spells attract rogue Juffleberns, so we had to say no."

Harry had never heard of Juffleberns, and doubted that his friend Hermione Granger, who memorized all of her schoolbooks at the start of every year, had either. One thing about Luna was that she tended to talk about complete nonsense quite calmly, claiming strange conspiracies or invisible creatures lurked around every corner.

"Oh," said Harry, "er, how was Sweden?" Luna had said last year that she and her father were going to Sweden in search of an animal called the Crumple-Horned Snorkack. Harry had asked his other friends if such a creature was known to exist, but they all gave decidedly negative responses, aside from the giant Hagrid, who had muttered darkly something about not asking questions and "showing up again in Knockturn Alley next", and refused to explain any further.

"Beautiful," answered Luna. "Unfortunately, we didn't find anything, and when we came home, the Death Eaters had burned down the house. But Sweden was very pretty."

Harry stared - this new information had come all in the disinterested voice, as if Death Eaters - Voldemort's servants - were nothing to care about or even find out-of-the-ordinary. Luna and Harry had both had first-hand experience with Death Eaters near the end of Harry's fifth year, when they and four other students had fought to protect Trelawney's prophecy in the Department of Mysteries, and they had seemed dangerous enough then.

"Don't worry about it," said Luna, "we weren't at home, and we don't have any pets, so no one got hurt. The only thing we couldn't replace was the pictures of my mother, and I remember what Mum looked like anyway."

There was an all-too-familiar silence as Harry struggled to find a response to Luna's calm sentences. "I'm sorry," he offered lamely.

"It's all right," said Luna, "but I don't like to talk about it very much. Are these all of our new neighbors? They don't seem very interesting."

"I think they call themselves 'normal'", said Harry, and Luna nodded, her protuberant eyes showing every sign of surprise.

"That makes sense," she said. "Why do you live here? You aren't normal."

Harry thought of all the times over the years he had asked similar questions. "Believe me, it's not by choice," he said. "I just live here so Voldemort can't get at me." Luna shrugged and walked off to talk to her father as if Harry wasn't there anymore. Confused, Harry stayed at the house-warming until the Dursleys left, talking to no one, and eliciting no further interest from the Lovegoods.

After the Dursleys had gone to sleep that night, Harry lay awake in his bed, composing two letters for Hedwig to deliver. The first was addressed to his best friend, Ron Weasley.

_Ron,_

_guess what? I went to a house-warming party for our new neighbor today. It was Luna. She and her father are living on my street now... no, of course I'm not joking. I remember hearing about their arrival a few days ago but I only today learned it was them. Pretty weird, huh?_

_Best wishes to everyone,_

_Harry._

Harry thrust the letter into an envelope, sealed it, and put it aside. He dipped the sugar quill back into the green ink-pot and began the second letter, which was somewhat more serious.

_Hermione,_

_it looks like there's another item to add to the Death Eater attacks list. Luna Lovegood's house got destroyed recently. (Don't worry, she and her father are fine.) Didn't they live near Ron? I hope Voldemort isn't too systematic in his attacks, even with all the defensive magic Ron says has been put onto the Burrow lately._

_By now, you may be wondering how I heard about this. You'll never guess... Luna is my new neighbor. Apparently she knows Ms. Figg - remember, the cat woman I told you about, whose house we stayed in at the World Cup - and they just decided to move in. Do you know if this is more security against Voldemort, or just coincidence?_

_Best,_

_Harry_

This letter too was enveloped and sealed, and Harry looked at the two letters sitting side-by-side for a few minutes before crossing over to Hedwig's cage and unlocking it.

"This one's for Ron," he said, giving her the first letter, "and this one's for Hermione. Got it?"

Hedwig pecked his finger gently to show assent, and took off into the night through Harry's open window. Harry stared after her dwindling snowy-white form, and sighed, thinking of another person he might have sent a letter to, only a few months previously.

Harry's godfather, Sirius Black, had died near the end of the last school year, just after Harry and his fifth-year friends had finished taking the Ordinary Wizarding Level examinations. Somewhere in the Department of Mysteries at the Ministry of Magic, the Order of the Phoenix had been doing battle with Voldemort's Death Eaters, when a spell from Sirius' cousin Bellatrix Lestrange had sent him flying backwards through a mysterious veiled archway of unknown destination. Harry had tried to get Sirius back from behind the veil, doing everything short of entering it himself to grab his godfather and pull him back into the real world, but all to no avail.

Sirius had always been easy to talk to, even when Harry had believed he was a mass-murderer, and Harry found himself writing mentally the letter he would have sent his godfather had he still been living. _Dear Sirius, _went the words in Harry's head, _Luna Lovegood just moved into a house on my street. You remember her, she was the blonde girl at the Department of Mysteries. Actually, she was knocked out by one of the Death Eaters before you got there, and then you couldn't meet her after you..._

Harry's mental letter broke off at that point, and he sank down into the bed, dejected. He could write all the letters he wanted, but Sirius would never receive any of them. It was better to think of the living, the people around him now, like his new neighbor...

And, unbidden, Harry's thoughts traveled back to a conversation he had had with Luna just before the end of the last school year, during the great feast. They had been talking about Sirius, and Luna's dead mother, and Luna had 'reminded' Harry that it wasn't like they would never see them again. Harry had expressed confusion.

_'Oh, come on. You heard them, just behind the veil, didn't you?"_

_"You mean..."_

_"In that room with the archway. They were just lurking out of sight, that's all. You heard them."_

"Just out of sight," murmured Harry quietly, and went to sleep.


	2. The Ravenclaw Room

CHAPTER TWO

THE RAVENCLAW ROOM

The next morning, things had returned to normal in the Dursley household, and there were no sounds of preparation to leave at early hours in the morning. Harry arose at a reasonable hour, and came downstairs for breakfast a while later to be completely ignored. Uncle Vernon had already eaten and gone off to his job at the drill company, leaving only Aunt Petunia and Dudley as Harry's silent companions as he made his way through a small portion of biscuits and water.

The Dursleys did not normally watch the news until some hours later, in the evening, so Harry began to climb up the flight of stairs which had been his ceiling for much of the first eleven years of his life, prepared for another dull day of sitting in his bedroom and maybe taking a look at his summer homework. Professor Snape, the potions master at Hogwarts, had assigned all students in Harry's year twenty-inch essays on the brewing of Aconite, which Harry had been postponing.

The young wizard had barely set foot on the first stair, however, when the doorbell rang, and Harry stopped, wondering who might be calling at this early hour. Aunt Petunia opened the door, and Harry heard the familiar somewhat-distant voice of Luna Lovegood as it made its way into the house.

"Hello," it said calmly, "is Harry Potter home?"

Harry watched as Aunt Petunia glared suspiciously at the doorway, then shot her gaze back towards Harry's frozen form, her stare implying that he most definitely should not be home and that he had no right to be so. "Yes, he is," she said, turning back to the doorway. "Why do you want to know? You're the new girl, aren't you?"

"May Harry come out to play?" asked Luna, ignoring Aunt Petunia's questions entirely. Harry could see his aunt considering the best way to answer this question.

"He may, I suppose," she said finally, "but I think I should warn you about him first." Aunt Petunia paused for a moment, presumably to check for surprise on Luna's countenance, then continued. "That boy is no good at all, I warn you. He's only here for the summers, the rest of the year he's at St. Brutus' Secure Center for Incurably Criminal Boys. I wouldn't trust him with a candle if we weren't forced to. I don't think he's at all the sort of boy your father would approve your being around."

"That's all right," said Luna almost instantly, "I don't mind. Although," she added a moment later, "it's really not very nice at all of you to say those things about him. I'm sure that Harry doesn't like being made fun of either."

Aunt Petunia attempted to begin some sort of retort, beginning by repeating Luna's words "made fun of", but she was cut off by Luna entering the house herself and coming to a stop when she could see Harry on the stair.

"Oh, there you are," said Luna, looking two inches above him. "Do you want to come outside? I don't think all of this indoor air can be good for you, there are too many Yibackles floating around."

Harry looked at Luna, smiling at her outfit, which seemed rather out of place in the meticulously ordinary living room of Number 4 Privet Drive. Luna still wore her necklace of butterbeer corks, but her earrings were now made out of miniature dried sandwiches instead of radishes, and the wand habitually located behind her ear had been replaced by a blunt pencil instead. She wore a bright blue t-shirt with several pockets and fringed edges, and black and white striped pants of some thick material. Her feet were bare, and a quick glance from Harry noticed faint grass stains on them.

"Sure, let's go," he said, and exited the house with her, ignoring looks of confusion from Dudley and extreme suspicion from Aunt Petunia, who shut the door hurriedly after them.

"Yibackles?" asked Harry, bemusedly.

"Small blue fuzzy relatives of hedgehogs," explained Luna, as they walked down Privet Drive in the direction of the play park Harry had encountered Dudley within a year previous. "They're agoraphobic, so they thrive on indoor spaces. They'll bite your feet if you give them the chance. Dad had a very nice article all about them in the Quibbler a couple months ago, but you don't read it."

"Er," said Harry. Luna's father was the editor of an odd newspaper called the Quibbler, which seemed to be the main source of every belief that Luna held. It had, in the past, included articles accusing Sirius Black of being a singing star or Cornelius Fudge of eating goblins. Harry had never quite seen the benefits to reading the newspaper on any sort of regular basis.

"It's all right," said Luna, interpreting Harry's noise correctly, "I'll get Dad to make you a subscription form. You do owe the Quibbler something after that interview last year, after all, and it won't cost you very much. Dad always says that the real payment for his work is making sure that the public knows the truth about what's going on in the world."

To this, as with many other things Luna said, Harry had no response, so they continued on for several more paces before Harry poised another question. "Um, you knew where I lived before you moved here, right?" he asked, just for confirmation's sake.

"Of course," said Luna tranquilly, not even looking at him. "Ms. Figg told Dad, and Dad told me, and I said that we should come here, so we did."

"Oh," said Harry, and tried to interpret that. "Why?"

Luna looked up at him. "You were very nice to me last year," she said, "even though you didn't know me before. I thought it made sense to live by someone who is nice to me, because there aren't very many people like that, you know. And I like you."

"Oh," said Harry again. "Um, thanks."

"Anytime," said Luna airily. "It doesn't make any sense to only say nice things about people when they're dead and can't even appreciate it."

Harry thought of Sirius and how Harry had never thanked him for being nearly a father to him, however briefly that time had lasted. "No, it doesn't," he said, and paused. "I like you too, Luna."

Luna was looking ahead again now, but Harry was sure he saw the faint touches of a smile on her lips. "Do you mean like Ronald, or like Cho Chang?"

"I don't like Cho," said Harry, a little too quickly.

"Really? That doesn't make any sense either. Why would you go drink coffee with a girl you don't like?"

"I liked her then," said Harry, "I think." He thought back to meeting Cho under the mistletoe, to their disastrous excursion to Madam Puddifoot's, and finally to the lack of emotion he had felt to the news that she was now involved with Michael Corner. "But she started crying at everything I said. What are you supposed to do when someone spends all her time bawling?"

"Make lemonade," suggested Luna cheerily, and Harry quickly gave up trying to think of a response. They had reached the play park now, and Luna sat down squarely on the middle of the teeter-totter, apparently caring little for the structure's intended up-and-down movement. Harry sat on a swing and rocked slowly back and forth, wondering what to say to one of the last people in the world he had planned or expected to spend his summer with.

"Did you get back all of your stuff that people had hidden?" Harry asked, after a considerable pause. The last time he had seen Luna at school, she had been putting up a notice requesting that people return all of her belongings, which was apparently a yearly event. Luna nodded.

"All but my Fern Fetcher," said Luna, "and I think I lost that myself, so nothing's wrong with that. I expect one day I'll be going somewhere in Hogwarts and I'll find it lying on the floor quite happily."

"What if someone else finds it first?" asked Harry, who had no idea what a Fern Fetcher was and had instantly decided not to ask.

"Oh, no, I don't think that's very likely. Not many people tend to go where I go for whatever reason."

Had Ron been there, he would probably have burst out laughing, but Harry suppressed such reactions. Luna continued. "And nobody really wants my stuff anyway. Don't you usually get back what you lose?"

"_But past an hour – the prospect's black; too late, it's gone, it won't come back," _sang Harry under his breath. That had been his clue for the second task of the Triwizard Tournament in his fourth year, when Harry had eaten a magical herb called gillyweed and descended into the Hogwarts lake to retrieve Ron from the merpeople. He had gotten Ron, and a foreign girl named Gabrielle, but he had never gotten back his parents, or his godfather.

"Ron's the only thing I've ever gotten back," he answered heavily. "And Ginny, once," he added as an afterthought.

"Oh yes," said Luna, "you saved her from Voldemort or something in my first year, didn't you? She told me about it… it sounded very impressive, although of course she was in love with you then, so she may have exaggerated a little."

"You call him Voldemort?" asked Harry, a little startled. Very few people dared call the dark wizard by his chosen name, usually using either "You-Know-Who" or "The Dark Lord" depending on their personal alignment. He had slowly been getting Ron and Hermione to use the name Voldemort, but they were still struggling with it.

"Of course," said Luna, adjusting her blue t-shirt. "After all, it's not like it's his real name, is it? There's nothing scary about an alias."

"Oh, right, Tom Riddle," said Harry, but Luna shook her head.

"No, that's another alias. His real name is much more dreadful. I'm sure he would kill anyone who dared to call him by it."

"What is it?" asked Harry, completely confused by this new information. For the first time, Luna's face showed real fear, and she glanced nervously up at the peaceful sky. "Don't make me say it, Harry," said Luna nervously.

"_Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself,_" said Harry, slightly consolingly. "Dumbledore said that to me at the end of first year. Please tell me, Luna, I need to know all I can about him."

"You'll protect me if I say it?" asked Luna, her enormous blue eyes pleading with him. Harry nodded, and Luna gratefully crossed over to the swing, where she clutched onto Harry's sleeve to whisper in his ear. Harry felt a strange urge to put his arm protectively around her but ignored it.

"All right," said Luna, faintly. "Voldemort's real name is… is…"

"Yes?" asked Harry gently.

"Is… **_Voldielumpkins._**"

The anticlimax was powerful, and Harry could not help himself, collapsing into laughter and nearly falling off of the swing. Luna looked extremely hurt and turned her back on him, crossing her arms defiantly. "I thought you were the only one who believed me," she said, voice cracking slightly.

"I do, sometimes!" answered Harry, his words still punctuated by short laughs. "But… but really, Luna, _Voldielumpkins?_" Luna gave a short shriek and hunched down. "Honestly, how can you believe that?"

"It's in the Quibbler," said Luna tersely, "April 1992."

Harry coughed, his disbelief over the name Voldielumpkins winnng out over his natural ability to support or at least pass over Luna's mad beliefs. "The Quibbler isn't…"

"You," said Luna, turning around quickly and glaring at Harry, the stick behind her right ear falling to the ground, "are coming home with me. Right now. And my father is going to convince you that I'm telling the truth."

"Um," said Harry, and thought about it. Sight unseen, it was certainly a better prospect than going back to the Dursleys right away. "All right."

From the outside, Number 9 Privet Drive appeared more or less identical to the other houses on the street, complying to the restrictions of the neighborhood society. It was true that the flamingo occasionally turned its head around to watch passing pedestrians, and the garden gnome looked nothing like Santa Claus and was in fact a fair representation of the gnomes found in the Weasleys' yard a few years earlier, but for the most part, the house had a common enough exterior. Most of the oddities began once one entered through the front door, as Harry and Luna did a few minutes later, the latter still sulking but looking somewhat pleased with herself.

Evidently the Lovegoods did not expect to receive any muggle visitors, for they had made no attempt to make their house look "normal" or non-magical. The rug in the entryway levitated a few inches off of the ground, decending reluctantly upon footstep as if it were the surface of a waterbed. The walls were painted in the same strange shade of orange as the paper edges of the Quibbler, and various excerpts from that magazine were hanging from the walls in frames, calling out to Harry to contest the truth of their messages. Harry was somewhat reminded of the Burrow, one of the two other wizarding houses he had been inside, but while the Burrow's clutter was due to poverty, Number 9 seemed to be crowded simply for its own sake, with stacks of strange tools and devices practically growing out of the floor. Harry looked about for Luna's father in the mess, half expecting him to be buried under two feet of broken sneakoscopes.

"He's gone out," said Luna, whose voice had regained its regular dreaming quality now that she was no longer arguing over Voldemort's name. "We'll have to wait for him."

"Er… right," said Harry, and looked around again. The nearest chair played host to a glowing blue cactus. "Um, is there anything safe to sit down on?"

"Not in here," answered Luna placidly. "Dad's researching an article for the Quibbler in here about the effects of unforgivable curses on common houseplants. He got my begonias yesterday, so I told him to do everything in here. There's plenty of room to sit down in my room, though, come on."

"Right," said Harry again, and followed Luna carefully through a sea of what appeared to be half-eaten notepaper, until they reached a closed door in one wall of the living room. Luna calmly pressed her finger against several points on the door, and it slid up into the ceiling, making a sound like an angry leopard.

Luna's room was similar to the rest of the house, with paper-mache curtains on the window and a collection of enormous hats – portraying lions, eagles, and other creatures Harry did not recognize – on top of one of the bookshelves. Luna laid luxuriously down upon the enormous white billowy bed that monopolized about a third of the room space and lightly plucked her wand off a peg on the wall, while Harry located the nearest chair. He had barely made to sit down, however, when Luna instructed him not to.

"Why not?" asked Harry, "there's nothing in it."

"Yes there is," said Luna. "I had the _Invisible Book of Invisibility _out for some reading that wouldn't strain my eyes, and I left it in that chair, and it's very valuable. I don't think dad would like it if you sat on it. Please put it in a bookshelf before you sit down. Or," she added, wrinkling her forehead, "you could sit on the bookshelf instead, but I imagine that wouldn't be very comfortable."

Harry groped around in the area of the chair until his hand closed over an invisible object the size and shape of a large book. He carefully moved it over to sit on a well-worn copy of the _Monster Book of Monsters_, which snapped angrily at Harry's hand before being squashed down by the invisible weight. Harry returned to the chair and, after a quick glance at Luna to make sure she would not object again, sat down.

"Thank you," said Luna calmly.

"No problem," said Harry, and looked uncertainly at the space where the book had to be. "How'd you get that book, anyhow? I went to Flourish and Blotts a couple years ago and they said they couldn't find any of their copies."

"Mr. Professor Moody gave it to me… he can see invisible things, you know. He was having a contest in one of his classes to see who could best resist the results of the Imperius curse, and I won that book."

"You can fight that curse?"

"Oh, yes. I don't really care very much what other people think, you know, and they aren't very good at influencing me. I just didn't want to dance on my desk, it seemed very silly, and I was much more interested in my magazine."

"In class?"

"Mr. Moody didn't like me reading magazines, actually, he kept shouting at me about being constantly vigilant, because if I was reading a magazine and Voldemort ran into the room, I wouldn't have much of a chance to defend myself. But I turned his robes inside-out and he left me alone."

Harry snorted, picturing the outrage that Alastor Moody – really Barty Crouch in disguise – must have felt at having his robes turned inside-out. Then he turned more serious. "He's right, you know," said Harry, feeling himself going into a lecture, "Moody. You never know when you might be in danger, especially not with the Death Eaters as rampant as they are right now. They burned down your old house, how do you know they're not going to try again?"

Luna waved her wand dreamily in the air above her, causing small glittering sparks to fall down in various patterns. "I expect I'll cast some spell on them and they'll leave me alone. Don't worry, Harry, I'm in the DA, I know what I'm doing."

Harry was about to mention that Luna had been incapacitated by a Death Eater in the battle at the Ministry of Magic a few months ago, and could easily have been killed if she had been seen as a dangerous target, but he was cut off by a large banging noise from the living room. There was the sound of footsteps, and then a male voice shouted out "Crucio!".


	3. The Wide Widower

CHAPTER THREE

THE WIDE WIDOWER

Harry swore and reached for his wand, only to discover that he had left it at the Dursleys, expecting no trouble in Luna's company. "Give me your wand," he hissed to Luna, one eye on the door in case someone should enter. "I've had more experience, I can protect us…"

"Harry…"

"What? Don't worry, get yourself somewhere safe-"- he gestured vaguely around the room –"-and I'll fight them off. If they get me, don't do anything stupid, just…"

"Harry…" said Luna again, sitting up and looking at him.

"What!"

"We're not in any danger." Harry stared at her in confusion. "That's my dad. He just got home." She paused. "I think he got the pussywillow."

Harry's brain took a moment to comprehend what Luna was saying, then he remembered her mention of her father experimenting with unforgivable curses on houseplants. In a few more moments, a smell of burnt pussywillow made its way to his nose, and he sank heavily back into the chair.

"You have Voldemort on the brain," said Luna calmly. "Come on, if you get up you can meet my father."

They exited Luna's bedroom, and Harry got his first close-up look of Luna's father. Mr. Lovegood wore billowing yellow robes which were one size too big for even his large frame, stood almost an inch above Harry despite his recent growth spurt, and wore large glasses in the shapes of fat grindylows. His blond hair was the same color as Luna's, but while Luna gave the feeling of simply being somewhere else, Mr. Lovegood seemed not to be anywhere at all, forever looking around as if he had lost something. His questing gaze caught sight of Harry and Luna almost at once, and he lowered his long wand to hang loosely by his side.

"Hello, father," said Luna, "what did the minister say?"

"The minister said there wasn't a chance of creating a Snorkack Detection Department at the moment," explained Mr. Lovegood, "too busy putting all their resources into detecting Death Eaters. Who's this?"

Luna inclined her head slightly towards Harry, who stepped forward, offering his hand. Mr. Lovegood extended the hand holding his wand, realized his mistake, and switched it for the other one, taking a loose hold of Harry's hand and moving it slightly up and down. "I'm Harry Potter," said Harry.

Mr. Lovegood nodded for several moments before any sort of surprise appeared on his face. "The boy who lived?" he asked, and Harry sighed inwardly, knowing that Luna's father would next want to see his scar, and perhaps after that say how much Harry looked like Harry's father, James, except for the eyes, he had his mo…

"No," said Luna, surprising them both. "He's not anything like that. He's just Harry."

Releasing Mr. Lovegood's hand, Harry suddenly felt a strong feeling of thankfulness towards Luna for those words. He had never been _just Harry_; he was always either Dudley's unusual cousin, or the boy who had defeated Voldemort, depending on the circumstances. He smiled at Luna, who blinked at him.

"Harry, this is my father, Flavian," said Luna, idly inserting the wand she still carried into the space behind her ear. "Dad, this is my friend Harry."

Flavian Lovegood nodded. "Very glad to meet you, Harry," he said. "Did you like our interview with you a few months back? It was written by some woman from the Daily Prophet, I think, not one of our regular correspondants, but it was quite good anyway, very believable."

'Some woman' had been Rita Skeeter, Hermione's old nemesis. "Yeah, it was great," said Harry honestly. "That really helped me a lot when it came out, thanks."

"It was very popular," said Flavian. "sold a lot of issues. You were actually the inspiration for our new "Interviews with Crazy People", Harry, but I expect you knew that."

"Er…"

"Harry doesn't read the Quibbler," said Luna, with her typical unhelpful honesty. "I think it's because Hermione Granger doesn't like it, and he thinks she's very intelligent,"

Flavian shook his head. "Well, that's nothing that can't be cured by a liberal application of the Quibbler. Stay for dinner, Harry, and while we're cooking, you can go over some of my favorite issues and see if they don't change your mind." He waved his wand, and ten or fifteen colorful magazines flew through the air from various directions, landing in a tidy stack at Harry's feet. Flavian slowly walked off toward the kitchen, and Harry turned to look at Luna, who smiled at him.

"Dinner?" asked Harry. "I just had breakfast about an hour ago."

"_Adherence to convention is the refuge of the uninventive,_" said Luna, and gave his hand a warm reassuring squeeze. "Do try to enjoy the Quibbler, Harry," she continued. "I know it's not exactly your sort of thing, but it means a lot to me."

Luna turned away to catch a falling pile of dishes Flavian had bumped against with his wide stature, and Harry looked down at his hand for a few moments before retreating to the chair in Luna's room, still holding the stack of magazines.

A few minutes into the Quibbler's stock of unusual articles, it was clear that the issue Harry had glanced at on the train to Hogwarts last year was quite representative of the magazine in general. On the front page of the first issue Harry looked at, a hasty sketch of a ghost with a wreath of garlic around its neck grinned up at him, bearing a slight resemblance to Professor Quirrel from Harry's first year at Hogwarts. It was attached to an article proudly entitled: **Society Suspect; Tolerance Tested; Vampires Vehement.**

_The Society for the Tolerance of Vampires (S.T.V.) has been a long-standing pillar of Wizarding Society, showing our love and diversity for those among us who happen not to be completely human. The Society advertises publically its goals to create a safe home for every blood-sucking Man, Woman, and Child, and the world seems content to believe that the Society follows these goals._

_BUT DOES IT?_

_Since the recent demise of the Society's leading member, Quirenius Quirrel, a skilled wizard well-versed in the studies of dark magic and dark creatures, the Society for the Tolerance of Vampires may have become the Society for the _Termination _of Vampires._

_Concerned Vampire _Barry Ryan_, keeper for the Irish National Side, writes: "When I suck the life-blood from my victims, turning them into unspeakable creatures of the night, I want to be sure that they'll have somewhere to go for counseling and love. But recently I've been getting complaints that some of the new vampires I send to the Society are being sold out to local vampire extermination gangs. This can't go on."_

_The Society's official response to this report, issued from their candle-lit office in London, states that Ryan is making a big deal out of nothing, and by the way, they'd still really like it if someone would apply to run the office. Readers are advised not to send their vampires to the S.T.V. until further research has been performed._

Another article provided a somewhat more positive view of life.

_**HORNY-HANDED HODROD HARMLESS:**_

_**Goblin is Okay!**_

_The headlines of every newspaper in the country are documenting the recent capture of Goblin Rights Activist _Hodrod the Horny-Handed_. Hodrod, accordng to Ministry release, stands accused of the shrinking and attempted murder of three respected wizards, two of them Ministry employees. There seems no doubt, given eye-witness reports, that Hodrod is guilty of this crime._

_BUT IS HE?_

_Quibbler's own reporter _Leda Lovegood_ was able to examine the wand allegedly used by Hodrod in his assault. "That wand couldn't harm a fly," says Lovegood. "It's a pointed stick polished a little to look like a wand. I've seen better fakes in the garbage at _Zonko's Joke Shop_."_

_Furthermore, one of the three wizards supposedly attacked by Hadrod – _Cassandra Hemplish _– is a known antagonist of the Goblin Rights movement, and received bonus points in her Hogwarts O.W.L.'s for excellent command of a shrinking charm. The Quibbler hopes to see the imminent release of Hodrod the Horny-Handed, and is willing to display the fake wand to all who are interested._

The many articles slowly became a blur in Harry's mind, as he sat and dilligently poured through pages and pages of strange, unlikely, and often meaningless interviews, exposes, crossword puzzles and special features. The issue containing Harry's interview by Rita Skeeter was not present in the tall stack, nor was the one that Kingsley Shacklebolt had sent to Sirius claiming he was a singing star, but that did not mean that the Quibbler had any less bizarre information to pass on.

_**New Word discovered in Troll!**_

_Percy Weatherby respectable new member of ministry – OR IS HE?_

_**Blue Monocle unearthed belonging to Godric Gryffindor!**_

_Inflestia Binchkins pregnant with husband's child – OR IS SHE?_

_Scottish "Unidentified Flying Object" a muggle helicopter – OR IS IT?_

_**Spot the Snorkack!**_

_"Tame Mermen", hot new band – OR ARE THEY?_

_Glibbus Counterfeit claims not to eat in months ending with Y – OR DOES HE?_

"Harry Potter?" asked a voice from the real world, and Harry jumped, the words automatically forming on his lips. "OR AM I!" he cried.

"I hope you are," said Luna, showing no reaction to Harry's outburst. "Otherwise I'd have invited a strange man – well, a different strange man – into the house, and I just got through convincing daddy who you were. Come on, dinner's ready."

Harry got shakily to his feet, legs protesting a little at the sudden exertion. "Listen, Luna," he said, hesitantly, "the Quibbler…"

"It's a little odd at first, isn't it?" asked Luna calmly. "Don't worry, you'll get used to it. If you believe in something, anything is possible."

"But…" Harry searched for the right words. "Darnit, Luna, it's just implausible, though. I mean," he picked up a magazine at random, "_Respected Wizard Albus Dumbledore having affair with Giant Squid_? How can you believe in that?"

"It depends on presentation," said Luna. "You would believe it if Hermione said it was true. I believe in the Quibbler."

"You believing in something doesn't make it true."

"Maybe not," said Luna cheerfully. "But look at your interview. Would you have fought against Voldemort; would he have returned if people didn't read that interview and believed in you? Banning it made it plausible, and reading it made it true." She tossed her hair. "If enough people believe that your godfather was a wrongfully-accused singing sensation, then maybe he will be. Maybe they'll stop being glad he's dead. Maybe they'll want him back."

"Do _you_ want him back?" asked Harry, without really thinking about it.

"I believe I want him back, because I believe you want him back, and I believe that I want what you believe will make you happy," said Luna, and turned. "Come on, Harry, today I believe that it is dinner time."

It wasn't, of course; it was still morning, but Harry followed along, once more suspending his disbelief a little for her. "_Luna Lovegood,_" he murmured, as if her name explained everything. But he didn't call her Loony.

The Lovegoods' dinner was an unusual affair. Flavian Lovegood stood by the kitchen counter, his expression a combination of satisfaction and puzzlement, spooning a murky blue liquid into bowls. "We're having alphabet soup," explained Luna.

"For dinner?"

"Of course! Soup is a morning meal, isn't it?"

Harry did not even try to argue with this, and sat down at a chair facing a large bowl of swirling dark blue. "I don't see any letters," he said, suddenly thinking of Professor Trelawney and her tea leaves.

"It's the ingredients," explained Flavian. "Artichoke, Blue Blisterine Root, Cockatrice Wing… you can eat meat, I hope, Harry?"

Harry nodded his head. "Yes, sir."

"Good. Dahlias, Edible Notepaper, Frogspawn, and twenty-two other enjoyable substances." Harry remembered an article in the Quibbler documenting the addition of two new letters to the alphabet and said nothing. "Um, don't mind if the dahlias are glowing a little, that's just aftershock."

The soup was like nothing Harry had ever tasted before, neither in a bad nor good way. It simply existed; a blue composite of twenty-eight unusual ingredients found in the Lovegoods' larder. It was also the first real food – in a sense – Harry had had since leaving Hogwarts Castle. He ate hungrily, disregarding the other inhabitants of the room until several minutes later, when he emerged from the fascination which the soup had evidently cast over him. Flavian, who had sat down at the table next to Luna, smiled at him.

"Good?" asked Flavian. Harry nodded. "You don't feel poisoned or anything, do you? No nasty side effects like memory loss?"

Harry's eyes widened. "Should there be?"

"Of course not. Still, it's best to check… Werewolf Drool doesn't agree with everyone. But I expect you know that from your classes… Luna tells me a professor Lupin a while back was quite familiar with the subject."

Luna's eyes wandered along the wall. "Yes… he _was _a werewolf, actually. I asked him some questions I had been wondering about after his first class, and he was very helpful."

Harry stared. "But nobody was supposed to know he was a werewolf!"

"Well, he _was, _wasn't he?" returned Luna, unperturbed. "He did swear me to secrecy, though," she added after a moment, "which was a little pointless because nobody ever believes anything I say anyway. Even Ginny." She turned her gaze to focus on the bridge of Harry's nose. "Well, you do sometimes."

Harry felt an unexplainable flush coming into his cheeks, and retreated to the mysterious safety of the blue soup. He looked up next after hearing his name spoken by Flavian.

"Yes?" asked Harry, returning his spoon to his soupbowl.

"Luna has told me that you can speak in parseltongue… is this true?"

Harry nodded, and Luna supplied briefly that Ginny had told her in a late-night game of Truth or Detention.

"Well, do you think you could translate the noises made by a strange washtub I have in my possession? I bought it from someone at King's Cross after dropping off Luna last year, and I haven't had a chance to get it translated… my own parseltongue, I'm afraid, is book-learnt and rather faulty. I'm terrible with pronounciation."

"Sure," said Harry hesitantly, wondering why anyone would want to learn parseltongue, and Flavian withdrew his wand and waved it – "Accio Washtub" – causing a blue and red spotted basin to fly through the air and land by Flavian's side. Almost immediately it began to speak, in that strange, hissing voice that Harry had become so familiar with during his second year.

"_A,_" hissed the washtub. "_Aardvark, Aback, Abacus, Abaft, Abalone…_"

"What's it saying?" asked Flavian, and Harry shook his head, a sheepish look on his face. "Nothing, really… it's just going through words, like a dictionary… Aardvarks and Abacuses and things."

"Abaci?" murmured Flavian thoughtfully. "Well, that might be good for learning pronounciation." He looked at Harry again. "You're sure it didn't mention anything about court scandals, or hidden treasure?"

"No," said Harry, confused.

"Ah well, I'll have to retract that article, then. Pity… all that research into the Snake Kings of Lebannon, and I was _so _sure this would be the missing link in their history. Jowls even mentions a washtub in chapter three…" he trailed off, and Harry sat across the table, wondering what he should say.

"Do you… retract your articles often?"

"Rarely," answered Flavian, returning from his thoughts. "This will be the third. Although there may be a few more, if the Ministry have their way with Luna's stories about the Department of Mysteries, which they're trying to hush up as quietly as possible." He shook his head. "The Ministry never changes. Maybe if Dumbledore was the Minister of Magic we'd see some change, but that's never going to happen."

"He doesn't want the job," said Harry.

"That's the problem… until he does, we're best off just giving the public another view, every chance we get." Flavian tapped his own bowl of alphabet soup with finality. "Eat up, Harry, or it'll get cold."

Harry did so, and the rest of the meal proceded in silence.

After 'dinner', Flavian Lovegood took out an inkpot and quill and began apologizing for the inaccuracy of the Snake Kings article, while Luna sat on her bed with a local newspaper, the front page headline announcing a kitten saved by a retired chimey sweeper. Harry was just wondering if he should go when Luna put down the paper and turned to Flavian.

"Father," she said, "there's a muggle concert this Sunday. Can I go? I think it would be an excellent learning experience."

Flavian returned his quill to the ink. "I'll be at the Ministry on Sunday, appealing my right to print your Mysteries stories. You can go, if you're not interested in seeing if the Wizengamot are really a many-headed Hydra, but I can't take you there."

"They aren't," said Harry, "I've met them."

Luna reexamined the newspaper. "That shouldn't be a problem… I believe Staines is quite near here."

"You'd have to take muggle transporation," said Harry, and thought of the half-giant Rubeus Hagrid and his troubles with the train to London. "Um, it might be sorta confusing, do you…"

"Oh," said Luna, and looked at Harry with her large gray eyes. "Yes, I had forgotten I couldn't just ride a Thestral here. I don't know much about trains, so you'll have to take me to the concert, Harry. You aren't busy, are you?"

"Uh," said Harry, "no, I'm not."

"Good. You can pick me up here on Sunday at 1, then. I don't think your family would approve so perhaps you had better not tell them."

Harry suddenly realized that nothing he said was going to make a bit of difference, much like his first interview with Rita Skeeter over a year ago. He had barely managed to begin a response with "Look, Luna…" when she extended a slim white hand and put it over his lips.

"You don't need to say anything right now, Harry," said Luna. "This is a new idea to you and I can tell you're confused by it. Think for a while. I'll see you again tomorrow and you can not want to take me to the concert then if you think that would be best."

Harry realized he was being dismissed and rose to his feet, turning to leave. The thoughts in his head began to bubble as Luna's softly enunciated voice came from behind him, saying "Goodbye, Harry. Thank you for playing with me."

Harry shook his head in confusion. Luna Lovegood was without a doubt the strangest person he had ever met, although he couldn't fault her for being like that. Harry did not have the best history of going places with girls, but she had not mentioned going out or holding hands or stuff like that, so maybe it would be all right. And it was Luna Lovegood, anyway, when would she think anything like that?

A small voice in the back of Harry's skull seemed to think that he was fooling himself, but the whole matter was put briefly out of his mind as he passed the bent form of Flavian Lovegood and suddenly remembered the original reason for coming here. He bent down to whisper. "Mr. Lovegood, I… that is, do you believe the things printed in the Quibbler?"

Flavian blinked several times at the interruption before his eyes focused on his questioner. "Truth is strange, Harry," he said quietly. "Sometimes it pays to have an alternate view on things, even if it's wrong. Just to get people thinking."

"Ok," said Harry. "But… Luna said… do you really believe that Vo – that You Know Who's real name is _Voldielumpkins_?"

Flavian went white, and the next thing Harry knew he was out on the sidewalk, with a very frightened-looking Mr. Lovegood locking the door behind him. A dog barked in the distance, and Harry began the short walk home.


	4. The Minstrels Mill 1 of 2

CHAPTER FOUR

THE MINSTRELS MILL

When Harry got home from Luna's house, dodging suspicious questions about his actions from Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia, he found his owl Hedwig proudly waiting for him with letters from both Ron and Hermione. Harry gently retrieved the folded papers while Hedwig, duty done, began to eat. The first letter was from Ron.

_Harry,_

_Man, you don't know how worried Dad's been. We all saw their house burning from the burrow, and nobody knew if they had been inside or anything, cause they don't tell people much. Mum's looking to wallop old Dung for not telling anyone, seeing as he's supposed to be in your area and all that. Lots of luck staying sane with Loony hanging around all the time, mate._

_Mum and Ginny send their love, and Fred wanted me to send you some candy, but it bit me so you probably wouldn't like it._

_Ron._

Harry looked at the letter. After Luna's calm acceptance of the state of their previous home, he had almost forgotten that it would be alarming to other people, particularly those who lived as close to her as the Weasleys did. He was glad that he had sorted out their disappearance, but was also kicking himself for not considering the possibility of its existence.

He lingered briefly over the mention of Ginny, Ron's firey-headed little sister. In her first year at Hogwarts, she had had an enormous crush on him, to the point of sending a dwarf with a singing valentine, while he had wanted nothing to do with it. She had grown since then, to the point of being among the six members of Dumbledore's Army who had gone to the Ministry, and was attractive, but he had decided that she must have lost interest in him if she was going out with Dean Thomas, and Michael Corner before that. Anyway, Luna had said that Ginny used to be in love with him, but not anymore, or something like that, so there was no point in thinking about that.

Of course, that was from the girl who had just told him to take her to a concert.

Of course, that was also _Luna Lovegood_…

Harry shrugged… he would try to figure that out later. Putting aside Ron's hasty scrawlings, he turned to the familiar neat hand of his other best friend, Hermione Granger.

_Dear Harry,_

_I don't know. I can imagine that Dumbledore might want to protect you a little more – Mundungus Fletcher isn't very reliable, is he? – but I can't see him choosing Luna Lovegood for the job. I don't know what her father's like, but his daughter is pretty strange – don't tell her I said that, Harry – and he edits that silly newspaper. I don't think he'd be a very good member of the Order, do you?_

_Yes, Luna used to live by Ron, I remember hearing about that at the Quidditch World Cup. I don't know what you might have told him, but I sent Ron a letter warning him to be careful if Voldemort is active in the area. He'll probably ignore it, though._

_Yours,_

_Hermione._

To his surprise, Harry found himself almost angered with Hermione for her comments about the Lovegoods, although he couldn't rationally disagree with any of them. The snake inside of Harry from last year had gone, but he could still feel its rage sometimes boiling up inside of him, another mark Voldemort had left. It was just another reason he couldn't ever really be 'Just Harry', as Luna had so calmly titled him.

Although he had been getting along pretty well at that today, even if he had been asked about Parseltongue.

Harry discontentedly threw Hermione's letter into the air, where it fluttered around for several seconds before coming to rest on top of Ron's paper. He would answer them later, maybe, but right now they were just making him think of Luna more, although he needed to do that anyway so he could figure out how to politely not take her to the concert that she wanted to see as an educational experience. He spent the rest of the evening trying to work on his Aconite essay and being distracted by thoughts of his blonde-haired neighbor and her unusual way of life. He ate his normal, scanty dinner in silence, and went to sleep undecided.

When Harry awoke the next morning, hair filled with lint from the bed, something seemed different about the room. It was not until he had retrieved his glasses and put them on that he realized what it was.

Luna Lovegood was watching him, barely moving, enormous eyes open in apparent concentration. "Hello, Harry Potter," she said, once he could see her clearly.

"Luna!" he yelped, feeling like he had in the prefect's bathroom in fourth year when Moaning Myrtle had come to talk to him. "What are you doing here?"

"I was watching you sleep," she said complacently.

"No, I mean…" Harry's half-asleep brain beat against his head. "How did you get here?"

"I came in through the window," she answered simply, "I was bored. What is 'Canovision'?"

Harry followed Luna's pointing finger to its target. "That's an old video camera," he said, "Dudley got it for his eleventh birthday but didn't use it much."

Luna nodded. "What is a video camera?"

"It's like a normal camera, but the picture moves." Even as he said these words, Harry realized how strange they must sound to someone who had grown up in the wizarding world. Sighing, he began a brief lecture on the limitations of Muggle technology. This transitioned into other strange, random things, until Harry became somewhat self-conscious, and went to take a shower in the bathroom against the hall, leaving Luna playing happily with a rain stick Dudley had never cared for, having calmly promised not to come and watch him while he was undressed.

Harry frowned as he stepped into the shower stall. A few days ago, he would have found the idea ludicrous, but he was having trouble arriving at good reasons not to let Luna go to the concert. Granted she was a very strange girl, having apparently entered in through his window to watch him sleep, but her actions also seemed completely friendly and she never treated him like some sort of special Chosen One. Her explanation of him as "just Harry" returned to mind as he turned the knob for the water. He had always missed a friendly presence while growing up, and even Ron and Hermione tended to give him some space, particularly last year. On the other hand, he couldn't convince himself to honestly say that Luna's beliefs were even remotely sensical, and her uncaring bluntness often resulted in him feeling extremely awkward, although the fault for that might not necessarily be entirely on her end. He sighed and watched the water flying down around him.

It's not like it's a question of granting her life or death, he reminded himself. Nor was he necessarily promising anything to Luna by taking her to this concert. She was interested in learning about muggle culture, just as he was unfamiliar with countless aspects of the wizarding world, and she needed someone to help her get to Staines. Besides, they had gotten along fine so far, and it seemed rather unfair to refuse a favor to a friend because of some vague concerns he didn't entirely understand. She might shun him for the rest of the summer, although she did seem somewhat accustomed to ill treatment. No, it was safe enough to help her get to the concert, and things would just proceed from there as they had done, getting to know his neighbor and friend.

Struggle unresolved but temporarily put aside, he smiled reluctantly, and turned the shower knob up a few degrees. Warm water poured down onto Harry's head, wetting and flattening his unmanagable hair, and he was just reaching for the soap when he heard, very distinctly, sounds from outside the bathroom. Dudley – the weight of his movement was unmistakable – was coming up the stairs. The large boy began to knock on a door.

"Potter!" yelled Dudley, and Harry got a horrible sinking sensation inside. "Mum wants you!"

Harry relowered the water pressure so he could hear better. There was the sound of a door opening, and then he heard Luna say "Oh, hello!"

There was a moment of quiet. Then Dudley said, very slowly, confusion etched in every word: "You're not Harry."

"No, I don't think I am," said Luna. "I don't think you are either… your hair is the wrong color and you're much too fat. Do you live here?"

Harry hardly dared breathe, shower forgotten as Dudley said, "my parents own this house. Who…"

"Oh, I'm sorry," said Luna, cutting him off instantly, "where are my manners? Won't you sit down? Maybe you can tell me your name, too, it's much easier to talk to people that way, don't you think?"

A door closed. And then silence.

Harry rushed through the shower, drying himself as quickly as possible and practially throwing on his clothes. His t-shirt, an old gray one with moth-eaten sleeves, was on backwards, but he didn't bother taking the time to fix it, and ran across the upstairs hallway into his bedroom, where Luna sat on Harry's school trunk, and Dudley sat awkwardly on Harry's bed, looking dazed – which was a somewhat standard expression for both him and people talking to Luna.

"But what actually happened?" asked Luna.

Dudley screwed up his forehead. "Umm… it was cold. And I was really sad, like when they cancelled the Great Humberto."

Luna nodded sagely. "Hmm. Well, it could have been a Three-Toed Hubberdink, they don't like other things beginning with H. Or maybe a Jywislit, or a Dementor, although I can't imagine what they'd be doing here, can you?"

Dudley's head snapped up. "Yeah! Mum said it was a Dement-thing."

Harry, still standing awkwardly in the doorway, hair dripping, decided to interrupt at this point. "What's going on here?" he asked, as the two worlds of his life once again swam around and reformed themselves.

"Hello again, Harry," said Luna, turning around to face him. "I was just talking with your cousin. Did you know he was attacked by a Dementor last year? I don't think we have very good luck with Voldemort and our homes."

Harry was not entirely sure how well Luna knew – or believed – the story of how his parents had died, so he ignored this last comment. "Yeah, I know," he said instead. "I fought it off… both of them… and Dudley punched me in the face." He glared. "He's just a stupid muggle, Luna. There's no use in talking to him."

"You shouldn't say things like that," said Luna reproachfully, as Dudley's face did something unreadable. "I've been trying to convince him you're a very nice boy, and you're not helping."

"I… but… why?"

"Well, because you are a nice boy. Or I think you are."

"He's not," said Dudley unexpectedly from the bed, and they both turned. The bigger boy looked scared, but he kept looking at Luna, as if she was somehow protecting him. "He's not nice. Last year… the dementish was holding me down, and then…"- he shot another glance at Luna, who regarded him fixedly with her big gray eyes – "_he _attacked me."

"I didn't!" yelled Harry, startled. "What do you mean I attacked you? When I found you the dementor had you on the ground like a little baby. I saved your life!"

"No… I remember… you were wearing this big cloak, with a snake, and you were using…" Dudley gulped, "_magic _at me."

"What magic?"

"I… don't know," said Dudley, now talking almost exclusively to the imperturbable face of Luna Lovegood. "I can't do it, I don't know what you were doing…"

"Hang on," sad Harry, as his brain leapt into action, trying to understand what Dudley was saying through the obvious falsehoods. Muggles couldn't _see _Dementors, but they could be affected by them, and killed… Harry remembered his own reactions to Dementors, the voices of his parents as they died, and the hopeless fear, repeated over and over again when training with Lupin against the boggarts. But Dudley had seen, not just 'voices', as he had said a year ago, but _Harry_… attacking him with magic.

"You're afraid of me?" asked Harry. He had known this, but it never really made sense until now, he had never _understood, _felt almost _guilty_…

"Yes," said Dudley, quietly.

"Using magic on you?"

"Yes," said Dudley, and Harry was not sure what else to say.

After several seconds, Luna turned back to Harry and broke the silence. "I don't know much about consoling people," she said matter-of-factly. "Do you think I should hug him or something?"

"…sure," managed Harry, still thinking of Dudley's visions of himself as a cloaked figure. "Couldn't hurt." Luna walked over to the bed and put her slender arms around the much larger boy's body, which collapsed thankfully into her. For a moment, Harry felt the same irrational anger he had felt when Hermione had criticized Luna in her letter, but he fought it down and watched as Luna Lovegood slowly patted the back of 'Big D' Dursley, Junior Inter-School Boxing Champion of the South East, faintly muttering something about Fandarus Crabs.

* * *

Eventually, Aunt Petunia came upstairs herself, and Luna was quickly convinced to hide in the closet while she yelled at Harry for not coming downstairs. Dudley's original mission for knocking on Harry's door had apparently been to say that Harry's aunt wanted him to mow the lawn before he could have breakfast. Harry dutifully started the well-polished lawnmower and walked it back and forth across the already-short grass for several minutes before being startled by Luna's voice behind him. 

"You forgot to tell me to come out of the closet, Harry," she said, without particularly seeming to care.

"Oh," said Harry sheepishly, and turned around. Luna was sitting cross-legged on top of the hedge. "Sorry, Luna. Aunt Petunia wasn't leaving that room 'till I was downstairs, not after Dudley got so side-tracked by you."

"It's all right," said Luna. "Dudley let me know it was safe." She gracefully descended from the hedge and fiddled with an earring. "I think he might be somewhat taken with me."

The lawnmower left a hole in the otherwise perfectly flat turf. "I hope not."

"You care?" asked Luna curiously.

"I… you don't know what Dudley's like, Luna. He beats people up for fun. I don't know what he's playing at but it can't last."

Harry turned the lawnmower, and saw Luna walking away. "Where are you going?"

Luna turned around to face him again. "If that's all you have to say right now, I think it is my suppertime and father will wonder where I am. Are you taking me to the concert on Sunday?"

"If you'll tell me where it is, I'll figure something out."

Luna's face burst unexpectedly into a wide smile, and her gray eyes shone in the morning light. "All right, Harry. Good morning!"

And with that, she did go home. Harry once again gave up understanding girls, particularly Luna, and returned to the simple process of operating a lawnmower.

* * *

That was the last time for a while that he felt as if she was 'testing' him in some strange way, and Harry was relieved, as it meant that she stuck to her usual unusual behavior. There was nothing much else to do on Privet Drive, and so Harry spent much of the next two days before the concert in various strange activities with Luna. Friday, she emerged from her front door proudly carrying a lime green disk with the words "Genuine Fanged Frisbee" etched onto it, and in smaller letters, "proudly sponsored by the Monster Book of Monsters foundation". It played in a somewhat similar fashion to what Harry had seen of muggle frisbees, but it tried to bite, and it would sometimes alter its course to head for some exposed skin. Neither Harry nor Luna were injured, and they spent some enjoyable time tossing it back and forth. Passing pedestrians paid them no mind, as it looked like a normal frisbee from a distance, and most people around had been warned to stay clear of Harry Potter years ago. 

After the frisbee began to sulk, sitting on the ground and snapping moodily at anyone who tried to pick it up, they were forced to find some other form of occupation. Luna's father had a Wizard Chess set, but this did not work out too well, as Luna was far more interested in playing with the pieces and trying to get them to speak to her. Harry recounted the story of the giant chess set that had blocked access to the Sorceror's Stone, and how Ron had let himself be captured by the enemy queen so Harry could win the game. When he had finished, Luna was nodding.

"That was very brave of Ronald," she said somberly. "I'm not sure I would have done that. I don't think I want to die anytime soon."

Harry avoided thinking of a dark-haired man who had probably not wanted to die either, and their conversaton turned to other people and things. He tried to engage Luna in speculation regarding what Dudley's motives might be, but unlike Ron and Hermione, who would actively speculate upon the identify of Nicolas Flamel or the origin of the Firebolt broom that Harry had received in his third schoolyear, Luna seemed not to find such discussion interesting. Nor did she find Dudley's behavior on Thursday morning unusual or worth explaining.

Friday evening, the Dursleys went to dinner at an expensive restaurant, and Harry called the number given in the newspaper and reserved two tickets for the concert. Saturday was further spent on random activities, although this time somewhat more muggle-based. Uncle Vernon was home instead of at work, so Harry fled the neighborhood, followed by a somewhat confused Luna. The girl was no good at skipping stones, but she did manage to deliver a long and very detailed lecture on the emotional impacts skipping could cause, listing several creatures and wizards Harry had never heard of in the process. They also visited old Mrs. Figg, who gave them tea and worried about Voldemort a great deal. Eventually they were forced to leave, with Luna doubled over in mad laughter, as Mrs. Figg, irritated, removed Mr. Paws from the lacy pink bonnet Luna had contrived to put him in.

"I used to try to dress up a cat that belonged to a girl in my dorm," she said, once she was able to speak without laughing. "It looked very much like Draco Malfoy, and I wondered how it would look in little school robes. But then the girl put a hex on me – this was before the D.A., you know, and I didn't know how to block it – and I couldn't talk for a day. Professor Snape was very angry because my potion was rainbow colored and I wouldn't say anything about it."

Around sunset, Luna went into her house and returned with a large number of Quibbler issues, which were read with varying interpretations in Harry's bedroom. Uncle Vernon was suspicious, but showed no interest in 'pawing through a bunch of ruddy magazines'. Halfway through a highly unlikely article on a hypothetical new transfer student plan allowing American witches to enter Hogwarts, Harry looked up and saw Dudley standing awkwardly in the doorway. Luna followed his gaze with her own big gray eyes and nodded, earrings bouncing.

"Hello, Dudley," she said. "Would you like to read some magazines about our world?"

Dudley shot a nervous glance behind him and approached cautiously. Luna gave him several Quibblers to start off on, including the one with Harry's interview in it. Harry remembered the previous year, when Dudley had taunted Harry by asking if Cedric had been his boyfriend.

"I didn't know you could read, Big D," he said unkindly.

Dudley's arms tensed and the larger boy looked like he was clinging to the magazines in his hands. "Shut up," he said finally. "I bet you've never had a pig's tail."

Sunday morning dawned bright and cheerful. Aunt Petunia grudgingly supplied Harry with a meager serving of leftover hash browns, which he ate detachedly, mind fixed on the upcoming concert to the point where he did not even notice Dudley's odd lack of smug response to Uncle Vernon's muttered comments about Harry's hair. After breakfast, he retreated back to his bedroom, where he spent several highly unproductive minutes struggling to apply a comb to his unruly curls before giving up and turning to his outfit. He had no idea what to wear, if indeed he was supposed to wear anything special at all. He ruefully recalled his fiasco of a date with Cho Chang at Madam Puddifoot's, which he had spent ten minutes agonizing over sweater colors for, much to the amusement of Seamus Finnigan. Not that he was yet entirely sure this was the same sort of situation – regardless of the blonde girl's recent strange behavior and cryptic sentences, the terms "concert" and "Luna Lovegood" did not seem the likeliest of logical companions.

If Hermione had been there, of course, she would have gone over him with a fine tooth comb, talking all the while, saying that this obviously meant a lot to Luna and he should do his very best to ensure she had as good a time as possible. That probably included dressing very nicely, no, of course not a suit, do you even have a suit, Harry, but something attractive. And he should be very careful not to hurt her feelings, of course, don't just stand there uselessly if she starts crying or something, not that I think she would, but I thought I'd tell you anyway…

Ron would have stared blankly at Hermione as if her hair had suddenly gone straight, but also turned black with honey-colored highlights. He would have demanded to know if Harry should put his thumb over Luna's, if they ended up holding hands or something – Ron would shiver a bit there – or if Luna should put hers over his.

Hermione would then look at him scathingly and say that she wasn't quite sure, of course, but she had read a fascinating book about the subject a couple weeks ago and she was pretty sure Harry's thumb was supposed to go on top, because he was taking her to the concert, and not the other way around.

Am I? Harry wondered.

Ron would probably then try to end the debate with his ever-practical "You're a girl, Hermione". Why do you need to know this stuff, it's us who'd be taking girls to concerts in the first place…

…and then Hermione would stand up very straight, and staring directly into Harry's hair the whole time, would say that he did not seem to be taking much of anyone to any concerts, Ron Weasley, and maybe someone ought to know about these things, even if he didn't. Then she would walk off, and Ron would shake his head and call her mental, and Harry would be left to figure out how to dress all by himself.

Finally Harry simply left his clothes the way they were—a plain brown shirt, jeans, and ratty sneakers with bright turquoise socks, the last of which somehow seemed important. He had no physical concert tickets, merely the unpaid reservations he had made on Friday night, so he stuffed some emergency muggle money in the wallet Dudley had thrown away seven years ago. After that, he could think of no other way to postpone the inevitable. "I'm going out," he said to the Dursleys on the way to the door. "I'll be back later." Uncle Vernon grunted in response.

Luna was lying tranquilly on her front doorstep, staring up at the sky. She wore an oversized white "Normal People are from Normandy" shirt, a headband of blue shamrocks, and a long dark blue skirt with embroidered dragons on it. Harry noticed that the creatures were all labeled – a Norwegian Ridgeback curled around her left knee, and two Antipodean Opaleyes chased each other around her waist, only the bottom halves visible underneath the point where the shirt left off. He considered asking if this wouldn't draw attention, but realized that anyone could name dragons, and nobody would know from Luna's skirt alone that these particular dragons – and the wizarding world – really existed. "Hi, Luna," he said instead.

Luna rolled partway onto her side to look up at him. "Hello, Harry Potter," she said. "Is it time to go now?"

Harry nodded. "Yeah, the train to Staines shouldn't leave for about forty-five minutes, but it's good to get there early." Besides that, he wanted to allow plenty of time in case they got lost on the way to the station – Harry had decided not to mention the fact to Luna, but he had never traveled alone before, beside wandering through Little Whinging, and was not completely sure he knew how to find the station. Luna, however, took his statement at face value and rose to her feet, a pair of earrings in the shape of the number five bouncing merrily as she did so. "I'm glad you came," she said conversationally as they set off in the direction Harry devoutly hoped led to the train station. "I had been on the doorstep for a while and even the sky can get tiresome if you watch it for long enough."

"Couldn't you have just gone inside?" asked Harry.

"No, I don't have a house key yet. After all, I couldn't cast Houmora on the door without the Ministry of Magic finding out, and I didn't think I wanted to worry about any of their letters while enjoying myself in Staines."

"You wouldn't," said Harry, ruefully recalling events one and four summers ago. "I got into enough trouble when a house elf dumped a cake on my aunt."

Unexpectedly, Luna broke out into her loud laughter again, leaning briefly against the Privet Drive and Wisteria Walk street sign until she regained her composure. "That would be worth a Ministry letter," she said happily, and they began walking again. "I didn't know you had any house elves, though, I thought you were trying not to be noticed by muggles. What do you pay them?"

"They're – Dobby's not mine," answered Harry. "He belonged to Lucius Malfoy at the time, though." They continued for a few more paces before he frowned. "Hang on… pay them? House elves don't like to be paid."

"Oh, well, I imagine that's because they've never tried it before. It can be scary sometimes to try something new, even if what you're going to try is to not try anything. I'm sure they wouldn't object to money if they got it… it's nice to be able to buy things, you know, even if you don't have a house of your own."

Harry stared, surprised. "You should talk to Hermione Granger," he said finally, as they turned another corner in what Harry hoped was the right direction. "She started this thing called SPEW – no, not SPEW, the Society for something or other – demanding house elf rights and freedom and wages and stuff."

"Hermione Granger is very close minded and doesn't even believe in Heliopaths," said Luna calmly. "But I will consider it. Thank you."

* * *

**Author's Note: **This is my current progress on the story, and I thought I should at least show it to people, even if it obviously cuts off before the intended focus of the chapter. The story is stalled because I'm having trouble getting the characters to work properly together, and although I don't feel like writing out my whole analysis of the dialogue in this story and why it isn't working, hopefully some of you should be able to see what I'm talking about. It's too awkward. I hope to find some way they can properly connect with one another but I don't know how long it'll take. In the meantime, you get this. Sorry.

While I'm at it, thank you, everyone, for all the great reviews. I'm glad you like this, and I hope to be able to write more at some point if they allow themselves to be the friends they really ought to be, and then whatever happens from there. In the meantime, if you're just looking for something in-character, Jedi Rita's "Becoming Neville" looks pretty good from what I read of it, although obviously with a different focus. I'd recommend a Lunafic but I've lost the link to my favorite. You may know it – it's on the train, Harry finds Luna in a compartment, and they play with some sort of toy or game. Short and sweet and nice to see them being just friends, humans, kids, and not saving the world.


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